Conveyer guide

ABSTRACT

For articles such as rectangular or cylindrical containers or cans, a conveyor guide of the chute type has a number of parallel rails affixed to transverse rib members at intervals along the path of the articles, the ribs in one example being hoop-like rectangular frames arrayed to enclose the moving articles with rails on all the lateral sides. The rails are affixed by means of clamping fasteners each of which is secured to the adjacent rib by a bolt piercing the rib normal to the direction of the path. The fastener can rotate on the bolt so as to permit alignment of the rail at an angle to the rib. Thus at bends in the path, or places where the guide twists to change the vertical orientation of the articles, the rails may be smoothly curved to conform to the path without crimping at the fasteners. The rails are made of springy resilient material to assist this effect. The fasteners are relieved, at least on the side facing the ribs, to improve the clamping effect when the bolts are tightened.

United States Patent Powell et al.

[451 Mar. 19, 1974 CONVEYER GUIDE [75] Inventors: Johnnie L. Powell,Turlock; Carl L.

Doyle, Modesto, both of Calif.

[73] Assignee: Mandrel Industries, Inc., Houston,

Tex.

[22] Filed: Jan. 13, 1972 [21] Appl. No.: 217,551

[52] US. Cl. 193/25 R, 193/38, 193/43 A [51] Int. Cl. 865g 11/10 [58]Field of Search 193/43 A, 38, 25 R; 198/33 AC [56] References CitedUNITED STATES PATENTS 3,077,969 2/1963 Raffe 193/38 880,144 2/1908Johnsonm 193/43 A 1,320,993 11/1919 Townsend 193/43 A 3,331,486 7/1967Towry 198/33 AC 331,909 12/1885 Price 193/43 A UX 492.034 2/1893Livingston 193/43 A X 1.436.549 11/1922 Tibbits l. 193/43 A 2,800,2117/1957 Madden 193/43 A X Primary Examiner-Evon C. Blunk AssistantExaminer-W. Scott Carson Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Arnold, White & Durkee[57] ABSTRACT For articles such as rectangular or cylindrical containersor cans, a conveyor guide of the chute type has a number of parallelrails affixed to transverse rib members at intervals along the path ofthe articles, the ribs in one example being hoop-like rectangular framesarrayed to enclose the moving articles with rails on all the lateralsides. The rails are affixed by means of clamping fasteners each ofwhich is secured to the adjacent rib by a bolt piercing the rib normalto the direction of the path. The fastener can rotate on the bolt so asto permit alignment of the rail at an angle to the rib. Thus at bends inthe path, or places'where the guide twists to change the verticalorientation of the articles, the rails may be smoothly curved to conformto the path without crimping at the fasteners. The rails are made ofspringy resilient material to assist this effect. The fasteners arerelieved, at least on the side facing the ribs, to improve the clampingeffect when the bolts are tightened.

4 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures CONVEYER GUIDE FIELD OF THE INVENTION engageat least one and usually all four lateral sides of the moving can asfrictionlessly as possible. The support and alignment means has usuallybeen a number of hoop-like rectangular frame or rib members affixed tothe outer sides of the rods, remote from the cans, at intervals alongthe path. The rods are generally welded directly to the ribs. Where thepath bends, or where the guide twists to change the vertical orientationof the cans, the rods must all be painstakingly and individually bent byhand to form a smooth curve, and the curves of all (usually six) rodsmust be adjusted to perpetuate the correct transverse spacingcorresponding to the transverse dimensions of the can. If the transverserod spacing is too great, the moving cans may tumble over and continuein axial alignment down the chute instead of upright, fouling the nextmachinery in the production line and damaging the can. Ifthe transverserod spacing is too small, the cans may stick or be slowed in the chuteand jam. The provision of correct spacing at bends and twists, where therod curves are threedimensional, requires high skill and time-consuminglabor, and in many canneries one worker is assigned on full-time duty tocontinuously correct the curves and spacing of the rods, working with apair of spanner type bending tools.

During the original installation, other difficulties are to be overcomein that the curved portions of the rods, or the tangents thereto, oftenshould not be normal to the plane of the rib frame if the correct curveis to be.

achieved, but should cross the rib at an angle. In making twists in theprior art however, the welds must be made with the entire chuteassembled and adjusted as a straight chute before twisting. A form orjig is often used for twists, consisting of,-say, half-inch-thickplywood templates for the rods, abutted face to face and bolted at thecenter by a long bolt following the axis of the twist. With this form,the rods and frames may be assembled and twisted as an assembly afterwelding; but even with this'form the soft steel rods will not bend tosmooth curves, but instead will crimp or kink at the ribs.

An additional difficulty is that although the rods are made of stainlesssteel to resist wear and corrosion from food and liquids, some of themnevertheless eventually do corrode and wear to the degree that they mustbe replaced. In such event, the entire chute must be replaced, for it isvirtually impossible to remove a single steel rod and to installanother, in an already formed chutc section, particularly at bends, andmore particularly at twists.

A further additional difficulty is that the steel cans and the steelrods make a great deal of noise together, with consequent damage to thehearing of the cannery workers.

To partly remedy these defects, it has been known to I jacket the steelrods with slitted plastic tubing which greatly reduces the noise,corrosion and wear problems, but does nothing to lessen the expense ofguide installation and adjustment.

Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a conveyorguide of the parallel-rail chute type that is easier to manufacture,adjust and maintain.

These and other objects are achieved in the present invention bystructure in which, for articles such as cylindrical containers or cans,a conveyor guide of the chute type has a number of parallel railsaffixed to transverse rib members at intervals along the path of thearticles, the ribs in one example being hoop-like rectangular framesarrayed to enclose the moving articles with rails-on all the lateralsides. The rails are affixed by means of clamping fasteners each ofwhich is secured to the adjacent rib by a bot piercing the rib normal tothe direction of the path. The fastener can rotate on the bolt so as topermit alignment of the rail at an angle to the rib. Thus at bends inthe path, or places where the guide twists to change the verticalorientation of the articles, the rails may be smoothly curved to conformto the path without crimping at the fasteners. The rails are made ofspringy resilient material to assist this effect. The fasteners arerelieved, at least on the side facing the ribs, to improve the clampingeffect when the bolts are tightened.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a side elevation perspective viewof a twisted section of conveyor guide in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 2 is a right end elevation perspective view of the twisted guidesection of FIG. 1, taken on the plane of lines 2-2 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the center top rod and ribof FIGS. 1 and 2, taken on the plane of lines 33 of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the structure of FIG. 3 taken on the plane oflines 4-4 of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 5 is an enlarged perspective view partly in phantom of analternative form of part of the structure of FIG. 3.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to the drawingand particularly to FIG. 1 thereof, there is shown a segment 11 of achute-type conveyor guide for articles such as cylindrical cans 1'2, 13.The guide section comprises six parallel rods or rails 14 affixed atintervals to rib members 16, shown as hooplike rectangular framesencircling the array of rods on the outer sides remote from the path 17of the cans. Although the rods are shown as curved, it will beunderstood that the tangents to the curves are parallel at any planenormal tothe path 17, or normal to the tangent of path 17, and the rodsmay thus be rigorously described as being parallel to one another eventhough curved.

The illustrated guide segment 11 is twisted about the axis of path 17 sothat cans entering upright at the right (e.g., can 12) are tilted invertical orientation during passage through the segment 11 and emerge intilted condition at the left (e.g., can 13). Ordinarily a twistedsegment is used to change the can orientation by at least but the changehere is shown as less for the sake of simplicity and clarity ofillustration.

To achieve the structure in the twisted state shown, the rods 14 arefirst assembled as straight rods with the rib frames 16 all at the samevertical orientation, and the two end frames are then simply grasped byhand and the assembly is twisted to the condition shown. In fact, thedrawing FIGS. 1 and 2 are essentially tracings of photographs that weretaken of an actual assembly that was set up and twisted by hand as abovedescribed. Considering the smoothness of the curves to which the rodshave been bent, and considering the difficulties above described inmaking such bends with prior art structures, it is evident that theinventive structure shown has novel and advantageous features.

One of these features is illustrated particularly in FIGS. 3 and 4, asthe fastener 21 by which the rods 14 are affixed to the frames 16 sothat each rod can freely align itself at the natural angle a (FIG. 4) tothe normal to the plane of the associated frame 16. The fastener has apair of clamp jaws 22 that enclasp more than half but less than all ofthe circular periphery of the rod, so that the rod is held securely butpassage of the cans is not interfered with. The fastener is then boltedloosely to the frame 16 by means of a bolt 24 that passes freely throughan opening in the frame and is threadedinto the body of the fastener,and the fastener is free to rotate when the assembly is twisted. Thusthe smooth, compound, three-dimensional curves needed in the rods areachieved without the use of a jig such as is required when the rods areto be welded to the frame,

and yet the rods are firmly anchored in position during twisting,leaving only the angular adjustment free for change.

Actually in the illustrated assembly, the bolts associated with themiddle frame 16 were left loose before twisting; the end frame boltswere tightened while the assembly was still untwisted and the normalalignment of the rods to the planes of the end frames was preserved evenafter the assembly was twisted.

After twisting, the middle frame bolts were tightened, to lock thefasteners firmly to the frame in their inclined attitudes a. Suchlocking action also serves to preserve the twist in the full assembly,since the twist cannot be removed without altering the inclination a.

An important feature of the invention lies in the use of springy,resilient material for the rods 14. A material successfully employed wasmolybdenum disulphide impregnated nylon, which was availablecommercially in rod form for use as roller bearing stock, but had notpreviously been used in conveyor guides. The nylon rods weresufficiently springy to assume the smooth compound curvatures requiredwithout kinking or crimping at the various fasteners. In contrast, a setof the prior art stainless steel rods was mounted in the illustratedframework with fasteners 14 and twisted as above described. These rodsremained relatively stiff and straight between the frames, but developedsharp, kinky bends at the fasteners to compensate for the twistdistortion. This was true even though the middle fasteners were leftonly loosely bolted prior to the twisting acwell-known wodden jig, whichmethod still resulted in kinked rods.

Among other advantages inhering in the use of nylon rods are, first, thesubstantial elimination of noise and clatter, and, second, asubstantially 10-fold increase in rod life. Furthermore, even though thenylon rods eventually become sufficiently worn to require replacement,it is a simple matter to loosen the appropriate bolts 24 and slip theold rod out and the new one in, without disturbing the remainder of thestructure; and replacement of the entire structure is not required aswith the prior art welded rods.

With the fasteners 21 it is also a simple matter to abut the ends of rodsegments in the middle of a fastener, as shown in FIG. 5.

As an alternative structure, the fastener 21a of FIG. 5 is economicallyadvantageous in that it is formed as an individual transverse segment ofan elongated extrusion workpiece 31 (shown in phantom for illustrativepurposes).

An important feature of the invention is the formation of the bottomside of the fastener, adjacent the rib 16, with a central groove 32defining a pair of foot portions 33 facing one another from oppositesides of the central medial plane 34 of the fastener. The bolt 24 isthreaded between the foot portions 33 and, when tight ened, draws downthe center part of the fastener and tends to close the jaws 22 even moretightly on the rod. The jaws 22 also face one another from oppositesides of the same medial plane 34. A slit 36 is formed along the medialplane of the fastener 21, 21a, on the side facing rod 14, to aid theclamping action. Lock washers 37 may also be used to preserve the lockedcondition of the fastener.

Thus there has been described an apparatus for conveying articles suchas cylindrical containers or cans, in which a conveyor guide of thechute type has a number of parallel rails affixed to transverse ribmembers at intervals along the path of the articles, the ribs in oneexample being hoop-like rectangular frames arrayed to enclose the movingarticles with rails on all the lateral sides. The rails are affixed bymeans of clamping fasteners, each of which is secured to the adjacentrib by a bolt piercing the rib normal to the direction of the path. Thefastener can rotate, or swivel, on the bolt so as to permit alignment ofthe rail at an angle to the rib. Thus at bends in the path, or placeswhere the guide twists to change the vertical orientation of thearticles, the rails may be smoothly curved to conform to the pathwithout crimping at the fasteners. The rails are made of springyresilient material to assist this effect. The fasteners are relieved, atleast on the side facing the ribs, to improve the clamping effect whenthe bolts are tightened.

What is claimed is: 1. In an article conveyor including a conveyor guideof the chute type having a plurality of spaced apart parallel railssupported by transverse rib members at intervals along the conveyorpath, the improvement comprising:

a plurality of resilient rails adapted for conforming to bends in theconveyor path without crimping; and

rail fasteners rotatably mounted on said rib members to support saidrails at various angles to said rib members at bends in the conveyorpath, each of said rail fasteners having;

a pair of clamp jaws separated by a slit for enelasping less than all ofthe circumference of the corresponding rail; and

a pair of spaced apart feet extending from the side of said fasteneradjacent to and engaging the corresponding rib member;

said jaws and said feet facing one another respectively from oppositesides of the medial plane of said fastener, each of said fasteners beingan individual transverse segment of an elongated workpiece defining saidmedial plane;-

each of said fasteners being threaded to receive a bolt passing freelythrough a conforming hole in said rib member and threaded into saidfastener between P0405) UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE v(1;.3RTIFICA'IE OFCORRECTION I a Patent No 3,797,624 Dated March 19, 1974 Inventor)Johnnie L. Powell and Carl L. Doyle It is certified that error appearsin the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are herebycorrected as shown below:

In the title, "Conveyer". is corrected to read --Conveyor-.

In the identification of the assignee, "Mandrel Industries, Inc." iscorrected to read -Petty-Ray Geophysical, Inc..

Signed and sealed this 1st day of October 1974.

(SEAL) Attest:

McCOY M. GIBSON JR. C. MARSHALL DANN Attesting Officer Commissioner ofPatents

1. In an article conveyor including a conveyor guide of the chute typehaving a plurality of spaced apart parallel rails supported bytransverse rib members at intervals along the conveyor path, theimprovement comprising: a plurality of resilient rails adapted forconforming to bends in the conveyor path without crimping; and railfasteners rotatably mounted on said rib members to support said rails atvarious angles to said rib members at bends in the conveyor path, eachof said rail fasteners having; a pair of clamp jaws separated by a slitfor enclasping less than all of the circumference of the correspondingrail; and a pair of spaced apart feet extending from the side of saidfastener adjacent to and engaging the corresponding rib member; saidjaws and said feet facing one another respectively from opposite sidesof the medial plane of said fastener, each of said fasteners being anindividual transverse segment of an elongated workpiece defining saidmedial plane; each of said fasteners being threaded to receive a boltpassing freely through a conforming hole in said rib member and threadedinto said fastener between said feet, whereby tightening of the boltstrengthens the grip of said jaws and affixes said fastener to said ribmember.
 2. The combination as recited in claim 1, wherein each railfastener associated with a given rail may be loosened for selectivereplacement of said given rail without disassembly of said conveyorguide.
 3. The combination as recited in claim 1, wherein said railscomprise nylon rod stock having a circular cross section.
 4. Thecombination as recited in claim 3, wherein said nylon rod stock isimpregnated with molybdenum disulphide.